NEW YORK – Collaborative divorce. The term sounds like an oxymoron in a culture steeped in high-cost, high-conflict breakups.

Yet many couples are embracing the approach, recently endorsed by the American Bar Association, as part of a broader quest to find more civilized, efficient ways to end a marriage. Do-it-yourself divorces and mediation are also popular options.

Lawyers by the thousands want to be part of the trend.

“Most of us had that moment where we realize the adversarial process is so damaging for our clients – and there’s a recognition that we can do better,” said Talia Katz, a former divorce lawyer who is executive director of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.

Katz said the academy, just eight years old, now has 3,000 members, mostly lawyers but also financial planners and other professionals. She estimates that 20,000 attorneys have received training in collaborative law, and groups promoting the practice are active nation-wide.

In contrast to mediation, in which divorcing couples entrust a resolution to a single neutral mediator, collaborative divorce involves the use of attorneys for each party, often joined by other expert consultants. But the lawyers, instead of sparing, pledge from the outset to work together in crafting an outcome that is fair to all.

“Most clients in a dispute are looking for an honorable peace, not war,” Boston lawyer David Hoffman wrote in a recent op-ed for The Christian Science Monitor. “Collaborative lawyers can be just as zealous about seeking such a peace as litigators are about victory in the court-room.”
Hoffman works at the Boston Law Collaborative, where the staff includes a psychologist and a financial planner. It offers divorcing couples a range of options, including mediation and collaborative divorce, as well as conventional litigation.

The firm analyzed 199 of its recent divorce cases and found that mediation, collaborative divorce and litigation all produced high rates of successful settlement. Mediation was by far the least expensive option, with a median cost of $6,600, compared with $19,723 for a collaborative divorce, $26,830 for settlements negotiated by rival lawyers, and $77,746 for full-scale litigation.

Sarah Smith, 47, of Sudbury, Mass., said she and her ex-husband, David Boyle, were able to complete a swift collaborative divorce two years ago for roughly $5,000.

“It was definitely the way to go in our situation – we didn’t have piles of anger about each other, and we also didn’t have piles of money,” Smith said. “Our main concern was the welfare of the kids.

“We both liked both lawyers,” Smith said. “As a group, we had some laughs together, and that made it nicer.”